Announcement

I have good news and bad news. Actually, it's the same piece of news, but it's bad news for people who like me and good news for people who hate me. Figure out which one you are and adjust your expectations accordingly:

I'm having surgery this Friday. While the chances of dying are slim, you might want to call me up or drop me an email if you're worried it will be the last time we speak. In the unlikely event that I croak during the surgery, I would like to say to all of you whom I have made enemies of in the past year: no hard feelings. If I live, however, don't worry--the hard feelings are still there.

Muskrat Does a Keg Stand

Yikes. I'm usually not the kind of person who gets so drunk as to be unable to function. I'll usually get pretty drunk at first and then slow it down gradually so that by around 3am I'm pretty sobered up, drinking water, and going to bed. Not so last night, my friends. J at work threw a party at his house with all of his roommates and all of their crazy friends. They actually had a keg, which was funny for me because I never did keg parties in college at all. Once J found out about that, he told me I had to do a keg stand, which I had never heard of before last night. Apparently this is where two people hold your legs in the air while you grip the sides of the keg and drink as much beer as you can directly from the nozzle. I looked up at J drunkenly and giggled, "That doesn't sound very hygenic!"

Well, I did it, but not very successfully. I think I got more beer on my clothing and on the porch than in my stomach, but then again there was already plenty in my stomach. I don't know what was wrong with me last night. I was actually drinking the way Elliot used to; he would already be completely drunk, but still drinking more just for the hell of it. There's only so drunk you can get, though, and after that you're just making yourself sick. I always hated that about him; everyone else would be slowing down, winding up the party, falling asleep, and he'd just keep on drinking in this driven, scary kind of way.

I suppose I can't judge him anymore, though. I consumed enough beer last night to get an entire football team drunk. J and his roommates had a bowl of pieces of paper with tasks written on them, and when anyone came in, they had to take a task and perform it before the night was through. Mine read: "Put your hand in your pants and keep it there for three minutes. Refuse to explain." It didn't take too long before I performed my task with enthusiasm, much to the delight of my fellow partiers. After many more beers, I devised my own task, which was to kiss everyone at the party. I used to be able to count on my hands the number of people I've kissed in my life. Now I have no idea what the number is, but I think I made out with roughly 15 people, three of them my coworkers J, M, and D. At the end of my kissing run, everyone wanted to know who was the best kisser. I wasn't really sure, so I just shrugged, but today I thought of the greatest answer that I should have said: "Me!"

Today was much less pleasant. I woke up in one of J's roomate's rooms, the same roommate who once stayed the night at my apartment with J after a party, slept in my bed, and tried unsuccessfully for an hour to get me to kiss him. He was snoring so loudly that night and this morning that I actually hit him with a pillow. He didn't stop for a moment today, though, so I got up, got M and her friend Beth and drove them home. About a mile from M's apartment, I vomited in a Sonic bag I had in the car. Beth switched me places and drove me over to someone's front lawn where I threw up some more. Once I finally got home I vomited up the aspirin M had given me and just fell asleep until this afternoon. Drinking is bad for you, kids. Don't do it.

I feel like such a cliche of the early-twenties single girl living in a party town. I'm having a lot of fun, but I know this isn't me. I think it's time to calm down and spend more time reading and hanging out in coffee shops. No more smoking, no more heavy drinking, no more kissing complete strangers. I'm having surgery on my feet in a couple of weeks, and I'd like to be semi-healthy before I go under the knife. I'll be unable to really walk anywhere for two weeks, so that will give me plenty of time to calm my life the hell down. In the meantime, I'll try to get myself in the habit of not living like a member of The Real World.

Whoa! Hillsong loves me!

It's after 2 in the morning. Andrew just woke me up with a wonderful drunken call, and it made me laugh so much that I can't get back to sleep right away. He's a very sweet, friendly drunk, which isn't surprising given that he's a sweet, friendly person. I wonder what it means that I am a dark, maudlin drunk; does it mean that's who I really am? Does alcohol reveal one's true personality? Anyway, it may seem inconsiderate to wake someone up at 2 in the morning, but I'll quote something he said tonight so you'll understand: "I was drunk and I was thinking, who can I call and not feel guilty?" Yes, that's right, Andrew has been on the receiving end of a drunken phone call from Muskrat (as many of you have), so now I deserve one back. It's only fair.

DID YOU SEE THE COMMENT ON MY LAST ENTRY? Phillip Dooley and the Hillsong crew actually found my blog. Can you believe it? While I'd like to believe they loved me so much that they stayed up all night searching for some sign of me on the internet, the truth is that most web page owners can easily look up who links to their site. Still, it totally rocked my face off.

Dear Hillsong,

I love you guys!! You all are flippin' sweet. I'm sorry that I didn't make it to your show, but not having a car made me pretty limited in my options for the evening. I hope it went well, and I'm glad that you made it home to Sydney safe and sound. I would love to come and visit sometime when I can afford the plane ticket. Perhaps in the fall when it will be spring down there; you crazy Aussies!

Anyway, now I'm worried that they'll be put off by my coarse language and questionable content, but I hope not. I'll try to keep it clean; I wouldn't want them to be afraid to let me around the youths when I visit. I actually am a Christian who's done quite a bit of mission work, although from my actual religious beliefs and behavior that information might surprise most people. I heart Jesus.

What's the theme of this entry? People love me! Or at least they love me when they're drunk or very, very far away. Either way, I'm feelin' good.

Long-ass entry

My life over the past few days has been so interesting that blogging about it seems like a chore. I have too much to tell, so I'll try to trim it down to the best parts.

Let's begin with a week ago, when my dear friend at work, M, went into the hospital for what she thought was a panic attack. It turned out to be some serious problem with her heart that required surgery. Yet when I arrived at the hospital, there she was, cracking jokes and having a great time like she always does. She didn't let any of us be sad for even a moment, and she kept rolling her eyes as she listened to her mom cry on the phone. You can't get M down--she's just too damned cheerful. So I spent a lot of time at the hospital until Tuesday when she went home (she has fully recovered since then), playing games and making the nurses uncomfortable with my irreverent humor. One of the nurses came in to tell M all the things she couldn't do in the week after the surgery, like heavy lifting, running, etc. I felt a frisson of wickedness run through me, and I reached over to grab M's foot while I asked the nurse, "What about sex?" She sputtered and umm'ed and looked down at her chart until I said, "It's okay; I can restrain myself for the next few days." I have never made another human being that uncomfortable in my life; I actually had to leave the room to escape the tension that I had created. It was a proud moment for Muskrat.

Wednesday night I went out with Sarah to the Spiderhouse to have some coffee and relax. We ended up running into a friend of hers, Dave, and we all sat down together for a long talk about nothing. Unfortunately, it wasn't long after we sat down that a crazy drunken guy in his mid-to-late twenties started running around in our general area crying, "I've lost my guitar! I've lost my $2400 guitar!!" Dave looked up and immediately recognized him; they had met the day before at the Hole in the Wall (bar) down the street. The drunk had told Dave that he escaped from rehab that day and he was never going back. Now here he was at the Spiderhouse, completely soused and probably high at only 9:00pm. We managed to help him find his guitar, but that ended up being a huge mistake, since he kept wanting to perform for us. He sat down next to me and introduced himself.

"Hi, I'm Daniel. Like Daniel and the lion's den."
"Oh, yeah? Are you religious?"
"No, I'm not. Well, I guess I am. Sometimes. Maybe. I don't know. No. I am a little bit sometimes, I guess. I'm a very spiritual person sometimes."

This is about how all of Daniel's conversations went. He bummed a cigarette off me and stuck it behind his ear while he played us a tune by the Cure that was unrecognizable. When he finished, he turned to me and asked, "Can I bum a cigarette?" I pointed out the one he already had, and he was as delighted as if I were a magician who had pulled a coin from behind his ear.

"Some people think I'm a worthless human being. But I think I'm alright. I'm kind of a worthless person, but I think I'm pretty cool sometimes [repeat this sentence in fifty different ways]."

I tried to escape by going inside for a while, and I ended up having an interesting conversation with a complete stranger who was in seminary to be a Presbyterian minister. I didn't catch her name, but she was reading a book called The Meaning of Jesus. If you've ever wondered what the meaning of Jesus is, you'll be happy to hear it's all right there in that one book. Anyway, she was thoughtful, interesting, and kind, and I hope I run into her again. It's nice to meet religious people that don't make you want to kill yourself or them. This is what I love about Austin--you never know who you're going to meet or what's going to happen.

When I went back outside, Daniel was there waiting for me. He started playing a song he wrote called "April," and I think he might have made it up on the spot. It was so awful that people around us were starting to shoot our group dirty looks like we were encouraging him. Finally Dave and I started playing songs on the guitar just to keep it away from Daniel, but he asked for it back finally and played a song called, "It's Hard." The lyrics go something like this:

(screamed at the top of your lungs) "It's so hard!! Yeah, it's so haaaaaard! It's so goddamned HAAAARD!" It was hard.

I tried to stick it out and talk to Dave and one of his friends while Sarah went to pick up Greg from work, but then Daniel said he'd like to play us "April" again. At that point, I gave up and left to go home. I was flying home to Tulsa the next day and I needed some sleep, anyway. Daniel insisted he had to go home, too, since he was going camping the next day. I don't know if he was running away from the rehab people or what, but I have a feeling his camping adventures probably aren't going too well right now. Just a guess.

Thursday morning I flew out of Austin at 10:00am on a crowded flight. Almost everyone was on the plane and it was getting near time to start the flight instructions, when all of a sudden a large group of tanned, styled, utterly cool guys and gals wearing hats, bandanas, and sunglasses strolled onto the plane. Everyone was looking at them; they were happy, joking, laughing, greeting people like they were having the time of their lives. Two sat down next to me and three behind me, and the rest scattered around the plane. The one next to me said, "G'day!" as he sat down, and his friend in the next seat asked what I thought of his hat before handing it to me to try on. Obviously, these people were special, and it wasn't just that they were Australian. What it was exactly about them, I can't tell you, except to say that they made me desperately wish I were one of them. After a few moments, one of the flight attendants came over the PA and made the following announcement:

"Will everyone please join me in wishing a happy birthday to our passenger in seat 12E [note: Muskrat was in 12F], Phillip Dooley, the three-time cage fighting champion of Australia."

Everyone on the plane oohed and clapped before launching into "Happy Birthday." His friends around him congratulated him, looking at the other passengers and saying, "Three consecutive titles. Amazing." Something was amiss, however. "So...cage fighting?" I asked him. "What is that? Like regular fighting except in a cage?"

"Oh, yeah," Phillip replied, "It's great; they bring a big cage down over you and there's just no escape. It's basically a fight to the death." I kept questioning and he finally broke down and said that, in fact, he was only training to be a cage fighter and that he had put the flight attendant up to the lie. After further questioning he scrapped the whole cage fighting story and admitted that he and his Aussie buddies had simply lined up in front of a map of the world and thrown darts at it to see where they would land. "Most landed in the Pacific Ocean, some landed on the wall, but one dart landed right on Tulsa, Oklahoma, like a bullseye. So we said, that's where we're going." I told them that they were sure to be disappointed and that they wouldn't find much to do in Tulsa.

At this point, Joel [seat 12D) leaned over and told me to stop listening to Phil's lies. "We're actually an Australian Christian rock band and we're going to Tulsa to play for this group from Oral Roberts University." Now, of all the stories I had been told, this one seemed the least plausible, but it turned out to be the only one that was true. Their band is called Hillsong, and there seem to be about 700 people in it as far as I can tell. The video they showed me on the digital camera showed tons of people running around on stage singing and playing instruments, and Phil told me that not all of them had come on this trip. I spent the rest of the flight learning about their youth ministry outreach and their music. If you think I'm making this all up, check out their website. I think these days God is trying to get me to meet more religious people who aren't evil to restore my faith in faith. In fact, I wanted whatever it was these people were taking, be it Prozac or large quantities of the Holy Ghost. They were SO happy, and not in an annoying way at all.

Here in Tulsa things have slowed down a bit. I've been hanging with the family and eating a lot of ice cream. Tonight I'm supposed to see my oldest friend, Inayat, at my favorite Tulsa restaurant. I think I'll scandalize her by ordering a few pints of John Courage and lighting up my last few American Spirit Blues. But I'm not a smoker. No, I'm NOT a smoker. NO, I'M NOT! STOP SAYING THAT!!